Earth Week programming announced for April 22 to 27

For its seventh annual celebration of Earth Week, SUNY Fredonia will offer more than a dozen major campus and community events to promote environmental stewardship between Tuesday, April 22 and Sunday, April 27.

Earth Week 2014 will include many familiar events such as the Campus and Community Electronics Recycling Collection, a beach cleanup at Point Gratiot, an invasive species pull, and an environmental film festival. New to Earth Week programming will be an Eco Variety Show, a keynote presentation by acclaimed Canadian filmmaker Andrew Nisker, a “Lunch with the New York Times” session featuring plastics pollution expert Dr. Sherri Mason of the SUNY Fredonia faculty, and lectures by environmental experts and activists Dr. Kenneth Shockley, Nate Drag, Glenn Wahl and Ken Dahlgren.

In concert with this year’s theme, “Back to Nature,” programming will start with an all-day multidisciplinary teach-in at the College Lodge on April 22 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Teach-in events will range from guided nature walks to lectures on a range of environmental topics to nature writing and drawing classes to interactive events such as a drum circle and a meditation labyrinth.

Wednesday, April 23 events will include a campus woodlot cleanup event between 3:30 and 4:30 p.m., and an Adopt-a-Beach training session, in advance of the Sunday clean-up event, is also scheduled for 6 p.m. at the SUNY Fredonia Technology Incubator in Dunkirk. The lecture sponsored by the Philosophical Society, “Objects of Hope in the Age of Climate Change” which was scheduled for 5 p.m. in Williams Center Room S204 by Dr. Kenneth Shockley, an environmental ethics philosopher and Academic Director of the State University at Buffalo's Sustainability Academy, has been cancelled due to illness.

The New York Outreach Coordinator for the Alliance for the Great Lakes, Nate Drag, will start Thursday, April 24 events with a presentation on volunteer stewardship and restoration projects on the Great Lakes at 11 a.m. in McEwen Hall Room 209. Rounding out the day’s events will be a lecture on hydrofracking by local educator Glenn Wahl at 4 p.m. in Williams Center Room S204 and an Eco Variety Show at 7 p.m. in the Williams Center Multipurpose Room.

On Friday, April 25, at noon Dr. Sherri Mason of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry will discuss, “Pollution Prevention and the Protection of Clean Water,” in the Japanese Garden area of Reed Library and Ken Dahlgren will explore, “Tobacco and its Effects on the Environment,” from 2:30 to 4 p.m. in Williams Center Room S204.

The Earth Week keynote event will also take place on Friday, April 25 during an environmental film festival. Acclaimed Canadian director Andrew Nisker will screen his film, “Chemerical,” at 8 p.m. in Jewett Hall Room 101. The film chronicles the Goode family’s attempts to create a toxic-free home while exploring the life cycle of everyday household cleaners and hygiene products. During the post-screening discussion Nisker will share his experiences in creating multiple environmental documentaries and founding Take Action films. The film festival will also include screenings of John Liu’s “Green Gold” at 5 p.m., a documentary about large-scale ecosystem restoration projects in China, Africa and the Middle East; and Jeremy Seifert’s provocative new film, “GMO OMG,” at 6:30 p.m., which has been making waves at some of the nation’s most cutting-edge environmental film festivals.

The week will end with the popular Campus and Community Electronics Recycling Collection on Saturday, April 26 from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the campus Park and Ride Lot on Ring Road, and two service events: a garlic mustard pull at the Alexander Preserve on April 26 from 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and an Adopt-a-Beach cleanup at Point Gratiot in Dunkirk on Sunday, April 27 from noon until 2 p.m.

Earth Week events are sponsored by the Faculty Student Association (FSA) and SUNY Fredonia Academic Community Engagement (FACE) Center, the Sustainability Committee, Office of Volunteer and Community Services, Campus Climate Challenge, Biology Club, Educational Development Program, Office of Student Affairs and the Young Philosophers Lecture Series.

All events are free and open to the public. For more information about Earth Week programming, please visit www.fredonia.edu/earthweek.